Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela.
Population
Estimated population is 5,000,000 - 50,000,000 (2010).
Boat-billed Flycatcher (Megarynchus pitangua) [XC258983]
by John V. Moore from Orellana: 'Yuturi Lodge', s-bank R\u00edo Napo, Ecuador (song, songs)
Boat-billed Flycatcher (Megarynchus pitangua) [XC699690]
by JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA from Taquaral de Goi\u00e1s, Taquaral de Goi\u00e1s, Goi\u00e1s, Brazil (song)
Subspecies
Affinities of genus uncertain. Syringeal morphology, nest architecture and molecular-sequence data indicate a sister relationship with Tyrannopsis. Molecular data provide conflicting but fairly weak evidence for the two being either the sister-group to Conopias, or basal to a group including Conopias as sister to a well-supported clade containing Empidonomus, Griseotyrannus and Tyrannus, but additional sequence data necessary in order to resolve true affinities among these taxa. Trinidad birds described as subspecies parvirostris on grounds of supposedly smaller bill, but considered otherwise indistinguishable from South American birds. Some subspecies seem readily distinguishable, others less so. Populations of nominate from southern Brazil and Paraguay appear somewhat larger and darker on average than those in north, but much individual variation; critical re-evaluation of subspecies is needed.
The following 6 subspecies are recognised:
tardiusculus Moore, RT, 1941 - Western Mexico (south-western Sinaloa, west of main Sierra Madre, south to western Nayarit).
caniceps Ridgway, 1906 - Western Mexico (south-western Jalisco).
mexicanus (Lafresnaye, 1851) - Eastern and southern Mexico (from southern Tamaulipas in east, from Guerrero in west) south to Panama and north-western Colombia (north-western Chocó south to R Juradó).
deserticola Griscom, 1930 - Arid valley of R Negro, in central Guatemala.
pitangua (Linnaeus, 1766) - Northern, central and eastern Colombia (Caribbean lowlands, Magdalena Valley south to Huila, and throughout east of Andes), Venezuela, Trinidad, the Guianas, eastern Ecuador (except Zamora area), eastern Peru, Brazil (south to Rio Grande do Sul), northern and eastern Bolivia, Paraguay and north-eastern Argentina (south to eastern Formosa and Corrientes).
chrysogaster Sclater, PL, 1860 - Western Ecuador (southern from western Esmeraldas) and extreme north-western Peru (Tumbes, northern Piura), possibly crossing Andes into southern Ecuador.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet